This seminar undertakes a variety of "what if?" speculations associated with crucial events from 1929 to 1945, with special attention paid to the potential role of international law. Could free-trade treaties and a more enlightened international currency policy have prevented the Great Depression? If France and Great Britain in the 1930's had enforced the Treaty of Versailles against Germany, would World War II have been avoided? If Franklin Delano Roosevelt had not bypassed US constitutional procedures and given Britain fifty over-age destroyers, would Britain have lost the Battle of the Atlantic and the war? We will examine the role of international law (and other factors) in the actual events and explore whether one speculation about an alternative course of events can ever be more valid than any other such speculation.

COURSE REQUIREMENT: A research paper or an analytically oriented project. NOTE: Students seeking to satisfy the upper-level writing requirement must submit a completed Writing Requirement Intent Form to the Student Records Office no later than February 20, 2015 - retroactive exceptions will not be granted.